Mountain Base in the Mountains

At that moment, the two monsters battling the mechs in the city center suddenly paused.

After taking the damage from three mechs head-on, Fist Scorpion moved straight to the front and held off all three by itself.

Flowing Blade retreated, then suddenly opened its mouth wide. Like a pair of scissors opening toward the sky, it seemed ready to cut the heavens in half.

Roar—

The enormous roar shook the world in every direction. This was truly "a sound that shook the world" in the literal sense.

The noise was deafening!

Even the Blood Angels far away, more than ten thousand meters distant, heard it. They all turned toward the direction of the monster's roar.

But the next second, a series of startled cries and heavy blows pounding against metal rang out from the same spot. They had no choice but to turn their heads back.

At that moment, all the vehicles at the scene had stopped. The doors opened, and the drivers hurriedly threw themselves onto the ground. Then they turned around and sat there, scrambling backward in terror with all four limbs.

The armed Self-Defense Forces members escorting them also raised their guns, staring tensely at the constantly shaking trucks and the cargo compartments that were periodically dented by sudden heavy impacts.

"Something inside is alive!"

"It seems to be related to the roar of the weapons of war created by that alien civilization. Those traitors really are studying things related to the aliens!"

"Then should we destroy it?"

Quan Tiehua shook his head when he heard the question. "Hide it for now. Our mission is to withdraw. First, make sure the commander and our wounded brothers can reach a safe place."

"Yes!"

As the hammering grew denser and louder, some of the surrounding personnel could no longer hold back their panic and began trying to flee.

The first person to run directly triggered those with weaker nerves. A crowd began scattering in all directions, but the next second, the heavily armed Self-Defense Forces soldiers swung their guns around and pulled the triggers without hesitation, killing the fleeing people where they stood.

As gunshots rang out and blood blossomed, the truck's shaking and the hammering stopped as well.

This sight made the armed Self-Defense Forces soldiers aim their guns at the truck even more tensely. One of the soldiers, who seemed to be their leader, signaled several subordinates beside him to open the doors.

Quan Tiehua and the Astartes shook their heads at the sight. To them, once a protected target became a threat to the Imperium or to the Chapter, they would eliminate it without hesitation.

At that moment, just as the hands of the two soldiers touched the door handles, the entire cargo compartment suddenly lurched violently before bursting apart!

A blood-red figure shot out and hoisted the two soldiers who had tried to open the doors into the air.

Then their brains exploded. Perhaps the ordinary humans present could not see what had happened, but the Astartes saw it clearly.

The two soldiers had been seized by enormous, pallid human hands covered in metal armor, with skeletal structures resembling articulated mechanisms running along the arms. Their heads were crushed, and they were lifted into the air before being squeezed apart.

The next second, the soldiers opened fire with everything they had, but it was completely useless. The monster slowly stepped down from the truck.

Its five-meter height exerted immense pressure on every soldier present. Even the Blood Angels could not help feeling curious.

With that height and armor, how would it fare in a clash with an Astartes?

The five-meter-tall figure was clearly a powerful human at its core. However, all four of its limbs had been severed at the joints, then connected and extended with armor resembling the drive arms of a mech.

Metal armor was also attached to various parts of its body. Its head stood out most of all: the entire upper half was covered by something shaped like a metal helmet, concealing the upper half of its face and skull.

It was a complete fusion of metal and flesh.

"Ah, these humans' biological technology isn't bad! I estimate the people from the Adeptus Mechanicus would be ecstatic if they saw this. And after they meet them, I imagine some tremendous changes will happen to their bodies!" Quilstein commented as he watched the monsters below begin wantonly slaughtering the soldiers.

With the appearance of the first monster and the start of its massacre, the cargo compartments of several vehicles farther back burst open one after another. Identical monsters leaped out and joined the slaughter.

None of the Blood Angels moved. They simply remained there, doing their best to conceal themselves while watching the bloody massacre of flesh.

"These aliens were cultivated by this base. There should be quite a lot of them inside, right?" Quan Tiehua recalled the assembly-line scene from Pacific Rim: Uprising, where Shao Industries' automated unmanned mechs were produced at the base.

"It's very possible that the entire mountain has been hollowed out!" Tylert studied the mountain twice before analyzing the situation. As the Chapter's foremost master of defensive fortifications and architectural construction, he could basically identify the weak points and roughly analyze the original structure of any defensive works or buildings constructed by humans on their homeworld in this two-to-three-thousandth-century era with nothing more than a glance.

Quan Tiehua had complete faith in his analysis. Back when all the Chapter's new recruits had completed their training, everyone had gathered for a celebration.

The Chapter Master had personally introduced the veterans with various technical specialties one by one.

When he introduced Tylert, he explained that ever since Tylert had joined the Wisdom Chapter, he had been responsible for and commanded the construction of the Chapter's defensive fortifications, as well as some of the chapels aboard its warships.

When it came to military engineering and architectural engineering, no one in the entire Chapter could surpass him!

"The area isn't small. Brother, how large do you think this is, and how many aliens like these are there?" Quan Tiehua asked Tylert. This was his specialty.

After estimating it several times, Tylert said, "I'm afraid they've excavated nearly a hundred meters underground. Judging by their current habit of wasting space, there may well be no fewer than a thousand of these aliens!"

Quan Tiehua could not help baring his teeth when he heard this. "What a damn nuisance. What a waste of time! Everyone, stay hidden and withdraw safely!"

"Yes!"

"Sir! The flight formation has now reached the skies over Edo and spotted two target monsters! Should we drop the bombs?"

At that moment, the B-52 Stratofortress bombers that had departed from Guam had already reached the skies over Edo at an altitude of six thousand meters.

"I'll give you a new set of coordinates. Carpet-bomb that location and force the target group out!" the commander's voice came through the communications channel. A new set of target coordinates was then transmitted to the combat system.

The pilots of the three B-52s could not help wondering whether the commander had lost his mind when they saw them.

After all, the order from above was for them to bomb Mount Odomo.

Shouldn't their targets have been the two monsters below?